This morning we drove to a highland area of Miombo forest, a very different landscape within Ruaha and one know for wild dogs. It was a cold morning, and many birds were puffed up (to hold more warm air against their bodies) as is the racket roller below. As with people, some individual animals feel the cold more than others. In impalas, this shows as a darker color on the cold-sensitive ones, created by goosebumps on their skin.
While we did not see wild dogs (they are famously hard to see and a high lion presence often causes them to migrate elsewhere), we did see new species and get a different perspective on this park.
This evening we went on a night drive. The first part of the drive was quite disappointing and we were feeling a bit low. Then suddenly animals started appearing. We saw four bat-eared foxes (two pairs of male and female), four white tailed mongoose, a couple of field mice, a leopard (how our spotter saw it high in a baobab tree is a mystery to us), and a wild cat. A slow start with a rewarding end. All the sights delayed us getting back for dinner ( being late for meals seems to be a theme of this trip).
Many ecotourism locations talk about an immersive experience; Kigelia Ruaha certainly delivers on that. Last night during dinner (at open air tables near the riverbed) we heard two sets of hyenas calling quite nearby. Most people decided to delay their walk back to cabins as a result — and then overnight both hyenas and lions visited the camp. This morning we had a nice picnic breakfast spot picked out— until we discovered two young male lions sleeping there! We watched them for a while and had a delayed breakfast elsewhere.
Pictured: bat-eared fox, goosebump impala, leopard, racket roller, warthog (naturally brown, as mud is gray here), lion dozing in our breakfast spot
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